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Monday, January 27, 2014

I "Liked It" The Square: The last part of a documentary weekend

Of all the documentaries I watched over the weekend, I
certainly did not expect to enjoy The Square the least. Of course I use the word
enjoy loosely. How could one enjoy a documentary of an uprising that led to
another uprising, that led to another, and ends with . . . well, not nothing,
but just doesn't really end at all. There’s no resolution, which
of course is not anyone’s fault; things are still going on in Egypt, and it
ends with a bit of info at the end telling of what happened to the people we
have been following, but still nothing happens.

I think one reason that I did not enjoy The Square as much as say, Strongman,
is that Strongman is about a man and his life, his future, his present; while
The Square is about an event, an even that may still be going on, sure, but
still it’s an event, and if the filmmakers wanted to follow it and show us the
event, then why stop when they did? Why not stick with it? I understand that
the uprising in Egypt could go on for years now, and the filmmakers couldn't follow
all of that, but still in their previous film Control Room, they seemed to
cover a war in the span of the documentary. Now obviously they did not,
but as I said they seemed to, they gave the viewers that impression that we
were there with them through it all.

The Square falls just short of giving us that impression. We were there for the
beginning, okay, and then we stuck with it, and stuck with it, and then we
left, and stuff is still going on over there. Maybe things calmed down, that’s
why the filmmakers chose to end it there and not follow through, I don’t know,
but still that’s how it felt to me like we just decided to turn the TV off and
move on to something else.

Also, The Square seemed just a bit laid back for the events that it was
covering. Control Room seemed more intense than The Square, and I mean that as
a whole. The Square has a lot more “action” or intense scenes of violence than
Control Room, and when you’re watching those scenes of people being driven over
with the trucks, and shot at, you really do get a sense for that moment of the
fear and confusion and panic. The people living in Egypt live with that always,
not just during those scenes, and I didn't feel that as I did
for those we were watching in Control Room.

I think The Square loses something because of the way it is shot. The
documentary is beautiful to look at; I mean seriously, it is amazingly filmed.
It’s like a Michael Mann movie, the only thing is, it did not sit well with the
sort of things we were seeing. Such tragedy and horror and injustice – but boy
does it look beautiful!

After all of that I don’t want to give the impression that I didn't like
it. I did. For all of its faults none of them could ruin what is a very
good documentary about a very important event in Egypt’s history as well as the
world’s. The documentary also makes the people involved as important as the
events themselves.

How can a guy living in Wichita, Kansas, relate to the turmoil that another man
may be going through in Egypt? I can watch Youtube and the news and all sorts
of other websites that show the truth of what is going on, but it is still the
documentary that really brings the people alive that are there doing the things
that I’m seeing on the internet and the news. I know I will never go to Egypt,
and I will probably never be involved in any sort of political protest (or any
protest for that matter), so documentaries like this bring us one step closer
to the people that are involved; I just wish I’d been able to get more attached
to the people I was watching.

The documentary ends with two men who had been protesting together, now forced
to opposite sides of a protest that had gradually changed. I wanted to feel for
both men. I knew that I should feel really affected by them and their
situation, but I just didn't, and I think in that moment, when the two
spoke and I felt nothing is when I felt The Square really missed
something. I was more upset when the young man who was killed, his mother spoke
about how she didn't care if her son was a martyr or not, she was
just sad that he was gone, and I never saw her until that instant. The two
men at the end I’d been with for over an hour or so and still
I didn't feel what I wanted to.

The Square is a beautifully shot documentary, and I think in the end, that is
its worst enemy.